Friday, September 4, 2015

FORGOTTEN FOES : DOGNAPPER

Flavor of the month is Fever Dream

Okay, here's a pitch: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but instead of characters from Victorian era adventures, it's mascots from every major restaurant and specialty food chain which ever offered an in-house comic featuring their mascot fighting crime. Let's see, that'd be Bob's Big Boy, the Burger King Kids Club kids, Captain D and, of course, Basky and Robin - and their pal the Pink Goose!

No, just call the police.

Great idea, right? No, it's terrible, and also I have no idea what the deal is with the Pink Goose. I was raised in Carvel country, so the mysterious ways of Baskin-Robbins is all a shadowy blur to me. What I do know, though, is that in 1980 the fine folks at Baskin-Robbins sponsored an adventure comic featuring their crimefighting orphan children cleverly named Basky (an ice cream-focused Banksy, I imagine) and Robin. Accompanying them in their adventures was something called The Pink Goose, a creature which sounds like a sex toy or something you only do to another human being in the dark, if not both.

I assume the pink goose is some sort of reference to the pink spoons used for samples at Baskin-Robbins? Again, I'm only familiar with Carvel, a chain where customers must scoop the ice cream from the cakes with their bare hands and fight their way to the door or be killed on the spot by wild Cookiepusses.

Whatever the case, they're apparently the trio to call when something untoward happens, such as a spate of dognappings followed up by ransom demands. This is the work of the appropriately monikered Dognapper, aka "The Man in Dog's Clothing," a bearded baddie whose dog-head hood is only the least insane part of his costume. Look at those thigh-high boots, for instance, if not what appears to be a pink terrycloth housecoat. Did he steal that from Mrs.Roper?

Well, they'll know you as the guy who wears a dog head.

When a wave of dognappings (i.e. "two," but it's a short comic) take over the indistinct "small town" patrolled by Basky, Robin and their unlikable flesh-colored bird, it's up to the two small unsupervised children to save the day. This is possibly because the Dognapper explicitly informs the families not to contact the police or the FBI (I love dogs and all, but would the FBI really get involved in dognapping? If so, I have an idea for True Detective Season 3).

Naturally, the first thing the kids do is call the police, so it's a responsible book, if not one that the title characters do a lot in. Still, they manage to nab the Dognapper, despite his bullet-prood plan - "With this fake dog-mask over my head," he muses, "No one will ever recognize me," adding "With all this money I'll head west and start a new rich life ... I'll dognap again!" Oh, it's not a profession, it's a compulsion.

It's a good strategy, but it falls apart in the end. Now all that's left for the Dognapper is a prison sentence and five to ten years of the ol' Pink Goose.

"Like my vacuum cleaner with the hot rod flames painted on it, or the guy feeding jackets to a large steak knife." In the ear...

What is Gone & Forgotten

Gone & Forgotten is a blog dedicated to the bottom of the comic book barrel; the Secret Wars IIs, the Kitty Pryde and Wolverines, the Green Teams and John Targitts and the one time Krypto swore like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

This blog has been around in some form or the other since 1997 or so, meaning you owe it, like, ten birthday gifts. Some father you are.

It's written by Your Humble Editor, who is actually a blowhard of some note.

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